...it's round here somewhere.
Seriously, here's a disclaimer. On this blog, I draw my own interpretations, publish my own sermons, and ruminate on the state of the Church independently of any establishment to which I'm affiliated. There are statements contained herein which may be wrong. Please correct me so that I can learn from this.

Sunday, September 09, 2012

Fruits of the biological machine?

Sermon preached on the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity, 9th September 2012 at Our Lady of Walsingham and St Francis
As you walk down Rochester High Street, just before you reach the turn off to the Corn Exchange you see a pillar, about 13’ high and 2’ wide.

On top of the pillar you see a man dressed in rags and tatters, hair unkempt, long straggly beard.

It’s clear that he’s been there some time.
Of course, you’re interested.
“Hello!” you shout, “greetings friend!”

The chap looks down and decides that you are worth breaking his silence for.

“Hello down there!”

In the exchange of introductions you find yourself introduced to St Simon Stylites, the saint famous for spending a great deal of his life doing what you see him doing – standing on a pillar all day and all night.

Of course, you naturally ask him why.

Simon explains, “I’m mortifying my flesh so that I can live in the Spirit.”
Mortifying his flesh?

That sounds positively barbaric!
Something that went out in the dark ages!
Does this really do anyone any good?

[PAUSE]

We tend to cringe at the thought of any form of over-exuberance in this country.
So someone standing on pillars, wearing hair shirts, or deliberately beating themselves up with whips and chains in order to discipline their bodies are people that may horrify us, or at least make us cross the road.

We often regard folk like that as being in desperate need of psychiatric help and a wide berth!

Then again, most folk in this country find the idea of a Lenten fast as something too enthusiastic or obsessively religious.

It seems terribly overmuch even to go without something for 40 days.

What’s wrong with going along with what our bodies tell us to do rather than treat them so harshly?

Many biologists tell us that Mankind is nothing more than an intelligent ape – a biological machine.

If this is so then this would explain our natural desires, the need to eat, to sleep, to mate and to avoid pain.

Every living organism has these needs and so it is quite reasonable for human beings to have instincts for eating, sleeping, mating and avoiding pain.

This is why it appears unnatural to go in for fasts, to say prayers in the middle of the night, to live lives of celibacy or even to go in for acts of physical endurance.

So, why do people balk at this self-discipline of the religious in the light of the Olympic Games?

After all, athletes withdraw from eating, sleeping, and many other things and put their bodies through some terrible pains to become more than physically fit to achieve something.

To become an athlete is something that our society praises.
Such folk get knighthoods and honorary doctorates for winning a race, but people standing on pillars or spending hours in prayer and fasting are regarded as cranks and crackpotseven if the same people go on to help those in need.

But then Athletes win Gold medals, don’t they?

What does the self-disciplined Christian get?

[PAUSE]

It is quite clear that we are more than just biological machines.

Our athletes demonstrate that there are things in life worth striving for and that we have things to prize beyond the basic maintenance of our bodies.

We are cultivating our awareness of the spiritual which is intensely difficult in a world biased towards the physical.

In order to be aware of the health of our spirit, we have to turn away our attention from the constant crying of our bodies to be satisfied.

We hear St Paul remind us that “the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.”

He is telling us that there is nothing more defeating to the health of our spirits than constantly sitting, fat and contented, watching “Murder She Wrote” on the telly.

We cannot become aware of God whose existence is not material if our lives are constantly focussed on the material.

[PAUSE]

Of course, our bodies do need food, sleep, love and healing, and for their maintenance we need to take care of these temples of the Holy Spirit.

But if we want to grow the fruits of the Spirit, if we want to cultivate “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance”, then we have to struggle and experience some pain caused by denying our bodies the comforts that they all too readily receive these days.

[PAUSE]

If we are not aware in ourselves of our struggle between our flesh and our spirit, then one of them has clearly won the battle.